“Computer, show me a safe route.”
Her eyes studied the maps and data, absorbing as much as she could on the fly. She was happy the computer showed her a way that didn't involve going back inside.
“Time to improvise.” In a few minutes, she assembled enough construction rope and fire hose to get her down the side of the building. She threw it all over, but noticed another wire was already hanging down the exterior. It came out an open space only a few floors below. She wondered if that's how she got in.
The thought spun up the computer interface.
>>Path of ingress. Blue.
She watched herself on surveillance cameras. She didn't climb the wire, but instead entered through a window from the roof of the parking garage far below. Another much taller woman entered with her. At the sight of the mysterious woman, an ember of a past life floated by.
“Let's jog Forest Park, huh?”
The next scene showed them sneaking into the hotel atrium. With weapons slung, they carried long metal stakes. They planted them on the floor when zombies ran at them. The tips drove into the skulls. It was bloody business.
They reached the open stairwell; small flashlights were out. Camera after camera showed them ascending. As they neared the top, an interior security camera showed several zombies standing on floor 30. As if they were waiting at the door.
“Impossible. Zombies can't plan.” A pause. “Unless someone put them there.”
Even watching herself she felt the dread of what was coming. There had to be twenty zombie men and women standing behind that door. Did chance place them there? She couldn't decide—didn't want to believe it was a trap set by someone.
Level 28.
Level 29.
She queried the computer, desperate to jump ahead.
>>Subject: Ms. Juvy Manzano. Status: Deceased.
“Oh sweet Jesus.”
At the thirtieth floor, the two of them stepped out. Blue noted she was toting an AK-47 and the other woman—Juvy—carried the Mossberg. She watched the replay as the trap was sprung.
Blue rolled through the door. From one knee, she began firing at the zombies standing ten or fifteen feet away. Juvy emerged from the darkness at about the same time. She swept both sides of the open door, catching the closest zombies before they could spring at Blue. A body fell into the doorway.
The scene went on. They systematically swept the remaining zombies in a well-orchestrated display of gun handling. One shot at zombies close up, the other aimed for those in a ring further away. Together they brought down a considerable number of the attackers with little direct threat to themselves.
The scene shifted. Another camera showed scores of zombies climbing the stairwell. It was a mixture of every size, shape, and state of decay. The snippets of camera footage in the stairwells was a horrible kaleidoscope of zombiedom. Little kids in happy-colored clothes ran with large men wearing basketball uniforms. All rising in the tube of the stairwell. Heading for her and Juvy.
The first of the undead tumbled out of the doorway. The dead body had kept that door from sealing. She remembered it all now that she saw it. She was scared when they came through. They were both surprised. That never happened before. The two women on the camera looked stunned. Distracted.
From another camera view, Blue realized why.
“That little bitch.” The young woman in the raincoat was there, on the floor below, looking up at the action. She had some kind of hold on her and Juvy.
More zombies tumbled out of the darkness. Juvy snapped out of it first, grabbing Blue's arm and pulling her along the walkway. Toward a room she knew.
The scene shifted to one last camera. Both women stood at the doorway to the hotel room where she'd woken up. Her own figure was trying to hold off the increasing number of zombies coming out of the stairwell while Juvy worked at the room's door. Some crept along the railing, out of their view in the replay, as Dawes had done.
As Juvy opened the door, a zombie from inside met the push of zombies—and the girls—from outside. At the last moment, Juvy tried to push Blue inside and shut the door, but the swarm carried them all in. For a full minute, the scene showed the mass of zombies standing outside, excited at the prospect of food. There was no room for more to go in…
Blue broke into tears. It was clear now what had to happen.
“How did I survive?” She said it without emotion. It seemed impossible.
The computer threw up a crap ton of data, but didn't answer the question. There was no camera in the room. Blue took it to mean the computer didn't want to admit she had asked the impossible of it.
There was Juvy at the door. She had taken the AK-47. She lined up each shot in rapid succession at point blank range, felling the zombies at a torrid pace. It was an impossible display of skill and luck. When she had created a little hole for herself, she turned around and used both hands to pull the hotel room door shut. How many bodies were lying in that space?
Blue fast-forwarded the camera in her mind, getting past the horrible end of Juvy. Her body must have been in that pile outside the room where she woke up…
Her anger at what the zombies had done—what someone had made them do—burned like a tiny sun in her chest. But for now her mission was much more basic than revenge. It was survival. The computer showed her the location of the MRAP moving around the nearby streets. If she timed it right she would have a shot of catching it.
Blue cinched up her pants. She didn't understand who she was, why she went into a hotel filled with a horde of zombies, or how'd she survived. All she knew for sure was she had to catch that truck.
Blue held the shotgun as best she could, and started over the edge. She pulled up the goggles so they wouldn't distract her. She didn't need them anymore, anyway. She could hear the engine of her target.
Chapter 3: Cairo
Liam woke up in a dingy room draped with tacky wallpaper showing little toy soldiers. The small bunk bed mattress sagged sadly as he tried to sit up. The top bunk sagged in a similar fashion above him. He ran his fingers through his wild hair, expecting to pick out pieces of mud and debris left from his swim in the Mississippi, but he was surprised to only find clean hair.
He looked at the pair of cargo shorts he wore—not his—and became concerned that if he couldn't remember a shower or how he got dressed, someone had to have done it for him. He was pretty sure it wasn't Great Grandma.
Well, that's embarrassing, he said to himself.
His arms were sore, and scraped up one side and down the other. Bright sunlight shone through the small, bare, wood-framed window. It drenched his skin as if he were under a microscope. The scratches were souvenirs from his days of travel and survival since the sirens went off...he didn't know how many days ago. The most momentous event in human history and he had no idea how long ago it happened.
Grandma would probably say it doesn't matter. Just live in the day. Or some other platitude that was both generic, and true. He didn't quite have the same knack for positivity she did.
The room contained nothing but the bed and a small desk, with no chair. Several bottled waters sat on top of the desk; they called to him.
As he gained his feet, he felt pretty good. He had a hard time remembering the details now, but he knew he hit his head when he fell on the hood of the MRAP. And then—it got fuzzy. As if to acknowledge his memory, he touched the side of his head. It was tender with a small pliable scab, but he must not have come out too bad if he didn't have a bandage.
The water invigorated him. He downed a whole bottle and reached for another, but checked himself from grabbing it. Voices carried from beyond the room. He went for the cheap brass handle on the wooden door. He had to know his situation.
He opened the door to step out, but once opened, he hesitated in the entry for a long time. The tiny undecorated living room was part of a small residential house. There were many people lounging about.
Grandma thumbed through a magazine as she sat next to a prett
y young girl on a squat cloth sofa. A half dozen other people sat on old metal chairs or sprawled on the wooden floor. Most appeared to be about his age. Their heads were buried in tablets, smartphones, and laptops. Many wore headphones, and none looked up at him. The detached companionship reminded him of any number of school functions over the years.
“Grandma,” he called.
Grandma Marty turned and gave him a big smile. So did her friend.
No way.
“Victoria?”
She stood up and moved the four paces across the room, and gave him a tight hug. When she pulled away, she kept her arms around his neck as she spoke. “I'm glad you're OK. The wound didn't look bad, but it did bleed something awful. I was afraid you were going to be out a lot longer.”
He had a million questions. But only one thing was on his mind in the moment.
“Victoria, you're gorgeous.” As he said it, he had a momentary flash of embarrassment. Paying compliments to girls was brand new territory for him, and doing it for a girlfriend in front of a room full of peers was cutting edge. But after all they'd been through together, he had no plans to spend his time navel-gazing about his feelings for her. No one else seemed to care.
She had cleaned up. She wore a perfectly white tank top with a modest neckline. Her shirt bracketed her cheerful silver cross necklace. She wore a pair of dark blue jeans, and even still had his belt around her waist—along with his leather holster, though it was currently empty. She found a relatively new pair of running shoes—they were white and bright yellow. But mostly he was impressed by how well she cleaned up her face.
Almost since they'd met, her face had suffered extensively. First when she was beat up in the Arch by looters, then when she'd fallen after getting shot, and finally when she lost her tooth jumping in a creek. The tooth was still missing, but it didn't detract from her image. Now those bruises were nearly healed and she had a chance to comb her hair and put it into a ponytail.
Her emerald eyes pierced his blues. She stood on her toes, gave him a quick peck on the lips, and separated. Liam was aware again of all the other young people in the room.
And Grandma. He moved to the sofa with great cheer; he sat next to her while Victoria scrunched in on his other side, with her legs folded under her.
“Hi, Grandma. How ya doing?”
“Oh, Liam. I'm so happy to see you all right. You gave us a fright on the plane.”
“I don't really remember the flight.” He looked around, trying to look out the windows to the street beyond. He saw other houses; his first impression was he was in some beat down little subdivision in the suburbs of St. Louis. “We aren't at Camp Hope, are we?”
“No, I'm afraid not.”
Victoria jumped in, “We're in Cairo, Illinois.” She pronounced it like care-oh ella noise.
He looked at her and she returned a smile. She was being silly.
Grandma continued. “That's right. The military brought us here, along with everyone who made it from that terrible stadium.” She paused while she appeared to swish her tongue around inside her mouth. To Liam, it reminded him of a stereotypical thing an elderly person might do, but he did it himself as he watched—suddenly aware he was still very thirsty. “When the plane was airborne, I thought they were going to open the hatch and throw us off the back. The Marines weren't too happy we helped bring the infected onto the field.”
“We killed all those people.” He said it, echoing himself from inside the MRAP while still in the city, though he couldn't decide if it was absolutely true. He hoped Grandma would tell him he was being dramatic.
“Well, we did let the infected into the stadium. I guess we have to take the blame for it.” She crossed herself.
No, we can't have really killed them. All of them.
He looked at Victoria, hoping she would argue the point, but she stared at the floor in front of them, suddenly very quiet.
Liam kept going. “OK, so we killed them. We didn't ask to be there. We didn't know they were there. We just wanted to survive.”
Once he'd said it, he knew what was coming. He stepped on every landmine in their short discussion.
He waited for it, but neither seemed willing to rub it in. “Of course everyone would want to survive. Some would do more than others to make that happen,” he imagined they'd say. “And Phil tried to warn us,” they would add.
Wanting to move past the ugly truth, Liam asked, “So what do we do now? Grab Mel and Phil and get back to my parents at Camp Hope?”
The strange silence continued. While the rest of the people in the room continued to push buttons and play games, Grandma and Victoria were both uncharacteristically quiet. The fashion magazine idled on Grandma's lap.
“What? My parents are coming here?” He smiled, but he could tell by their faces that wasn't it.
“Come on guys, you're freaking me out. That's not funny when zombies walk the Earth.”
He had a hard time looking at both of them, since they were sitting on opposite sides, but he did catch a nod between them.
“Liam, when we got off the plane we didn't find Melissa or Phil.” Victoria held his arm as she continued, “We don't know for certain they didn't get off the plane when it landed, but nobody remembers seeing them. They wouldn't just run away. The only thing that makes sense is they never got on in the first place.”
Liam had been with Phil almost since the beginning. He'd come to think of him as part of his A-team of survival experts. Melissa had been a good solid addition too. He thought she may even have been more valuable than Phil for her military prowess.
“OK. So we go out and look for them. Scour the camp.” He looked at Victoria, knowing Grandma wasn't going to be doing much search and rescue at her age.
Victoria gave him sad eyes. “Liam...”
“What? What am I missing here?”
Holding his arm tighter, “Liam, that was two days ago. You were exhausted. Injured. We didn't want to wake you up for this. If they were here, someone would have found them by now.”
He flopped backward into the cushion of the sofa. Now Grandma held his other arm. He felt like his head was spinning, even though he felt fine. He thought Mel and Phil had been harmed by the survivalists back at Camp Hope, but he left before he was forced to see that truth. Then they showed up in the MRAP and saved him, Grandma, and Victoria in the city. And then...
“Two days? A lifetime of things could happen in two days. We have to go look for them. And then we have to find my parents.” He said it without conviction. His whole life recently had been a series of rescues. How many more could he endure?
On the other hand, sitting on his butt was the last thing he wanted to do.
2
Liam's compass spun wildly. Here, he was elated to be safe with Victoria and Grandma. Over here, he was angrily accepting that Mel and Phil were almost certainly dead. Finally, as the compass finished its sweep, he was terrified his parents sat back at the Boy Scout camp worrying about his fate.
He reached for his phone. Two days ago, it was waterlogged and presumably broken. Today…
“Um. My phone's gone.”
“No, I have it.” She pointed to a nearby table. “I charged it for you. They have everything here for techies. I also put it in a sealed plastic bag. For the next time you go swimming with it.”
She chuckled.
"It's working again?" he said excitedly. “Thank you!”
He jumped off the couch, grabbed it and removed it from the bag, and thumbed through the screens to get what he wanted. While he worked, he continued, "Victoria, get in there with Grandma. I'm going to take this photo if it—"
For many days he lamented he never took Victoria's photograph with his phone. In the Old Days, he would take pictures of urinal cakes as goofs to send his friends. Now, taking such pictures seemed the height of civilization. But before he could get the camera app loaded, he saw something else.
"Oh no. I have a text message. I'm not sure who it's from."
Victoria hopped up to get a look at his phone's screen. She looked at the message and the phone number where it originated, but said nothing further.
He looked up and saw Grandma with a patient face. As always.
"OK, Grandma, this is what it says, but I don't get it." He cleared his throat as if it were an important radio announcement. "Liam. Need to go to Koch Hospital Quarry. See research." The number was prefixed by the 435 area code. It was from the day before.
"Grandma, did you send this? Like you did the other one." Back at the Riverside medical lab, a strange message had appeared on Victoria's phone, supposedly sent by someone using Liam's phone. Grandma was holding it at the time, though the message could have been sent hours earlier based on how frequently the cell phone towers dropped service.
"Oh, I'm afraid it wasn't me. I don't know how that other one was sent to Victoria either. I only barely managed to contact you, Liam."
It was true enough. She had gotten one message through to him, giving him an X to mark the spot where she was being held captive. It was by far the most important text he'd ever gotten—and it came during a gunfight to boot. But now...
Victoria finally spoke. "I should tell you this town has the internet. It even has cell service, though the people who run the place say most of the other towers are down in the surrounding states, so there aren't really many people to talk to."
"Wait, internet is working? How?"
Victoria sat on the arm of the sofa. "From what I've gathered, this place is a hub of sorts for all the surrounding country. When the zombies came, local governments and some military retreated here and brought as much tech as they could. There's a huge parking lot with nothing but tractor trailers and generators humming next to them. But," she heaved a large sigh, "like the cell towers, there's not much to do on the internet because lots of the cities are completely offline."
Liam wasn't exactly sure how the internet worked, but he knew there were transmission lines between cities which carried data—they were always laying more fibre cable next to highways. But if the cities were dead, there'd be no one to manage the hubs, and with no one to manage those, it was only a matter of time before they either went offline because of power loss or even something as dumb as a zombie tripping over a network cable. Not many techs would be on duty either.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 92